Always Online, Always Exhausted: Expert Explains The Mental Wellness Cost Of Digital Work Culture

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The notification arrives at 11 pm. A Slack message. A work email. A calendar invite for tomorrow's early call. Most people check it. Many respond. And almost nobody talks honestly about what this constant availability is doing to them over time.

It is a pattern that has become so normalised it barely registers as a problem - until it does. To understand what is really happening beneath the surface of digital work culture, we spoke to Achal Khanna, CEO, SHRM, APAC and MENA, who has been closely watching how organisations and individuals are navigating this shift, and what it is costing them.

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The Office Has Not Closed - It Has Just Moved

Digital work culture has quietly rewritten the boundaries between professional and personal life in ways that no policy document has caught up with. The office no longer closes. It simply moves into the bedroom, the dinner table, and the weekend. And the mental load of being perpetually reachable does not disappear when the laptop shuts. It lingers, disrupting sleep, fracturing attention, and producing a low-grade exhaustion that accumulates across weeks and months.

What The Research Is Telling Us

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The scale of this problem is not anecdotal. A 2024 study published in Sage Journals surveyed 142 workers about their digital workplace experiences and found that information overload and the fear of missing out on work communications are significant risk factors for employee mental health, and that both directly lead to greater exhaustion. A separate scoping literature review found that as many as 69% of remote workers are at risk of digital burnout due to an always-on work culture. These are not fringe findings. They reflect what millions of people are already feeling but rarely name out loud.

The Damage Is Real - But It Is Invisible

The challenge for organisations is that this is largely invisible damage. People show up. They deliver. They answer the late message because the culture expects it, and career consequences feel real. But engagement data, attrition patterns, and rising mental health support requests are telling a different story.

Fixing The Culture, Not Just The Policy

Fixing this is not about banning after-hours emails, though that helps. It requires leadership that models genuine boundaries, cultures that measure output rather than availability, and honest conversations about what sustainable performance actually looks like.

Bottomline

Always-on culture feels like productivity. Often, it is just presence. And presence without recovery does not compound - it depletes. The notification at 11 pm is not the problem in isolation. The problem is the culture that made answering it feel compulsory. That is what needs to change.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational and educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or a qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.